Previously (May 06) in the context of the recent British Election and the first past the post (FPTP) election process employed in the UK I made some comments in relation to possible electoral system reform in Australia.  In the event my remarks concerning the potential for FPTP to result in some success for other than the two major political parties – Labour and the Conservatives – were not reflected in the election outcome, which saw the Conservatives win a majority of seats and thus the power to govern in their own right.

In my defence I was not the only observer surprised by the result, with all the major UK polling organizations embarrassed by the gap between their predictions and the ultimate reality.

The concept of smaller parties profiting by the vagaries of FPTP was not entirely rejected by the UK results, however, if we consider the success of the Scottish National Party (SNP).  Garnering only 4.7% of the national vote, SNP won 95% of the seats it contested (56 of 59), all in Scotland.  Before it is said “yes, but that is just Scotland nationalism” it should be understood that this result was based on a minority of the votes cast in those 59 electorates, albeit by a very small margin.

Further, with a swing to it of just 3.0% the SNP increased its representation from six to 56 seats.  It did so by concentrating its focus and resources in specifically targeted electorates, an obvious strategy given that its rationale is to pursue policies of direct and specific interest to the voters in those electorates.  This strategy was in no way encumbered by the FPTP voting system; indeed 23 of the SNP’s seats (over 40%) were secured by less than a majority of the votes cast, with several recording successful votes in the mid thirty percent.

The opposite of the SNP strategy was that adopted by the Liberal Democrats (erstwhile coalition partners of the Conservatives) and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) both of which contested all 650 seats, thus spreading both focus and resources over the entire electorate.  Both attracted a significant volume of votes but were singularly unsuccessful in securing seats.  The lesson for these parties is clear – for as long as FPTP is the basis of the UK system they must keenly target seats and not diffuse their resources (and message) over numerous seats which they cannot hope to win.

Which brings us to the major associated outcome of the UK election – widespread criticism of the obvious inequities of the FPTP system.  Looking at the major political parties the bias in favour of the majors is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the Conservatives require only an average vote of 34,244 to secure a seat; Labour requires 40,277; the Liberal Democrats require 301,986; and the UKIP and the Greens, with one seat each, require votes in the millions.  To complete the picture, SNP requires only 25,972 votes to secure a seat.

Coupled with the fact that in the UK 2015 FPTP election the Conservatives gained 24 seats on an increase in its vote of less than one per cent, while Labour increased its vote by 1.5% but lost 26 seats, this should suggest that, whatever might be the future of electoral reform in Australia, FPTP will not be  part of any change.